The Pain is in the Remembering
by Ayveena
Summary: Glass layer after glass layer, could Lalnable (was that even his real name?) even hear the sound? It was a ripple in an ocean. A pebble in a mountain. He wouldn't even know if the world fell away. Knowing the crazy machines here, that wasn't even unlikely. (Yogscast - Xephna)


Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The man on the other side of the glass never moved, staring glassily away from Honeydew as if he was enraptured by something in the distance. Glass layer after glass layer, could Lalnable (was that even his real name?) even hear the sound? It was a ripple in an ocean. A pebble in a mountain. He wouldn't even know if the world fell away. Knowing the crazy machines here, that wasn't even unlikely. He looked drunk as hell, swaying gently in his containment.

He tapped on the glass, a little song that he remembered hearing in Khaz Modan. How old was he when he'd heard it? It was so foggy. Everything was so hard to remember before Yoglabs. Cloning glitch, Xephos said.

Xephos was just being paranoid. He was always paranoid, that one. Honeydew would have thought someone as outwardly confident as him, someone who could know the workings of thousands of machines and how the world began before even dwarves dug – and could fit all of that in his well-groomed head- could be afraid of a somewhat chubby blonde man behind hundreds of layers of bulletproof glass.

Tap, tap, tap.

Tap.

Xeph was taking ages, as usual. Something about nuclear reactors, cloning, the government. Something illegal and horrible, probably. Who even knew, he dodged questions faster than a creeper could explode when you found diamonds.

Whatever he'd gone off to do he needed to hurry up. The coffee in the cafeteria had come out green and _alive_, and he really needed a fix. He was buzzing like the bees that Xephos kept telling him to '_never to talk about on pain of death'_.

Maybe there was some sweets around. Who knew. They probably contained rat poison or the spit of an ancient god or something.

Tap.

Tap.

_Tap, tap._

**Tap.**

Ever so slowly, the blonde head turned.

**Tap.**

Static. Honeydew rose from where he leaned against the glass, rubbing at his eyes. Maybe he shouldn't have tried to give the 'coffee' a sip before checking how good it was. His vision swam and he stumbled slightly. The blood rushed to his head, but he wasn't even _moving_. Was he?

His vision faded to a collection of static and green, awful colours. An incessant tapping noise like the ones he'd just made flitted through his brain. Cracking noises so loud that his ears rung and popped. He clutched at them hard, pulling at his hair as his helmet slid off his head, crashing to the ground with a thump that definitely shouldn't have been that dull.

"Did you really have to tap so much?"

Honeydew's vision cleared and his eyes widened as he saw the glass was _shattered_. All of it, every pane, fallen to little cracked pieces.

And there he was, yellow-haired and unconcerned, his knuckles bloodied with tiny little shards of broken glass, glass Xephos had said _Bort _couldn't break, not in a million years. His blue-green eyes so fixed on him even as he picked pieces from his arms and chest that had dug deep into him. He was sopping with fluid, red soaking his body but he didn't seem to notice. Like it didn't _matter_.

He looked so calm, not quite right. Not quite human, like something that you know is askew but you just can't tell _how_.

When Lalnable took a step towards Honeydew, tentative, and the static came back. Bile rose in his throat because it felt disgusting, like static electricity eating away at his brain, buzzing along his muscles and gnawing at his spine. He twitched, acid burning at his throat. His head spun.

Did he give off the static? What _was he_?

"Did you?" Lalnable's voice was pleasant, friendly even, like he wasn't slowly making the world buzz apart and fluctuate, like he might be describing the weather and not slowly advancing like a cat with a mouse.

"What the fuck do you want?" Honeydew spat out, eloquent as he could be when his eyes threatened to pop out and electricity shot down his legs until he swayed drunkenly on his feet.

_Get out of here, get out, get out!_ He screamed at himself, but he was sluggish and his legs would barely answer him.

Lalnable stopped and cocked his head to the side, "That's unhelpful, really. Where's Xephos?"

Honeydew backed away, step by leg-shaking step, sneering as best he could with his uncooperative muscles, "Like I'd tell you, you rotter!"

"Rotter?"

He sounded _offended_. Like he hadn't just taken the biggest and most jagged piece of glass out of the pile and considered it like a knife, even as the edges cut into his pale fingers and were coated in thin trails of blood.

Probably considered it _as_ a knife.

His pleasant face began to contort, his eyes growing icy as he set a pair of green-irised goggled on them. He began to almost glow a sickly green as he fragmented like a glitch, returning to normal so fast that he might have imagined it, but he didn't have time to ponder it as Lalnable began to _run_.

_Run._ _Run, you big idiot!_

He tried, he did, but everything was eaten away by static and electricity and blackness, the floor below his knees and the bile that seeped out of his mouth.

* * *

"Honeydew?"

The routine maintenance to the core wouldn't usually take long, but one of the testificates managed to get himself wedged in the machinery and turned into sticky pink goo - the machinery nigh _exploded_. It was enough of a pain when he had to mop, but when all he had free to help were bloody incompetent interns it slowed it down to a crawl when they asked him to tell them one end of a spanner from the other every five minutes.

Then there was the slime colony in the coffee machine. Judging by the trail of slime leading away from a dropped mug, the poor dwarf must have given it a go.

It was a shame, since he'd only just gotten those special jungle blends. Pity they were infested with jungle slime _eggs_, the kind with stingers and venom. The whole cafeteria stank of their sickly sweet frangipani scent. He'd get the testificates in to clear it out later.

"Honeydew?"

Drip.

The noise wasn't loud, but if anything in Yoglabs was leaking it wasn't good, no matter what. Xephos turned on his heel and began briskly walking towards the sound- it was coming from one of the mod rooms. Couldn't be nuclear waste then. Maybe it was just water damage? His ears were so sensitized but he still couldn't tell.

Drip.

Third room on the left.

He'd only just torn down the last sets of machinery they'd had in there. He'd fixed the walls. He'd refitted the pipes.

Drip.

It smelled fouler the closer he got to it, a few flecks of red staining the marble floor around the doorway.

The door had an enormous heart drawn on it in dried, crusty blood. The smell was acidic in his nose, and he nearly retched at its pungency. His mouth became dry.

He pressed the button beside the door, the door sliding up on the expansive room in total darkness. It stank of something foul that made him wish for the sickly scent of jungle slimes. Maybe even the chemical smell of a lab. Not this biological stink he suspected was something he'd rather not think about too hard.

He made his eyes glow softly as he stepped inside, one hand on his pistol.

The door slammed behind him, the lights flickering on one by one.

Lalnable.

He's covered in red, all but his face, and he remove his goggles with a bright smile. He looks at him like nothing's happened.

Like nothing's changed.

"Xephos!"

Drip.

"I missed you!"

Xephos shook his head, eyebrows knitting together, "What have you done this time?" His grip on his pistol tightens.

"I made something for you," Lalna- _Lalnable_ spreads his arms out, and Xephos shoves the urge to run into them deep down in himself, "look up!"

Drip.

Xephos looked up, eyes wide, and retched.

He wouldn't have even known it was Honeydew if not for the straggles of orange beard sticking out of a few haphazard places on the grotesque monstrosity, glass shards replacing eyes and organs hanging free out of his chest, his heart nailed to his open head with a haphazard collection of nails prised off panels. His spine was arranged in a fucking _smiley face_ that hung loosely from his contorted body. It was all hung from the ceiling with cords that held him spread eagled.

_Drip._

His mouth dripped blood. Every other part had been drained white. His head spun with sickness.

He'd be cloned. He'd be fine. The ginger dwarf would wake up in his bed and have forgotten. But Lalnable wouldn't have made it quick.

He tore his eyes away from the remains, backing away as he saw how close Lalnable stood to him, cornflower blue eyes staring at him, waiting for approval.

"Why?" His voice choked, half on the stink of rot and blood and half on something like grief, "Do you still hate me?"

"Shh... Xeph, Xephos, I don't hate you," he had that look in his eyes, the soft look that made him feel safe even as his friend's blood dripped steadily into an ever-growing pool before him, "I forgive you, always."

And he pushed him ruthlessly against the wall.

Xephos wanted to push away, but he knew how strong Lalnable was, how _cruel_. His mouth tasted of chemicals and ozone, the blood he'd found him drinking greedily before he locked him away in his glass cage. He crackles with static like a broken television set, electrified as he desperately pushes his mouth against Xephos' like he's trying to devour him, but he still does it with _purpose_.

"I love you."

He says it between kisses, over and over, desperate and shaking. His bloody hands gripping his silken red coat hard, staining it deeper crimson. He's vicious, pulling hard until he rips the lapels and claws at his shoulders to regain purchase.

"No, you don't," his voice shuddered.

Lalnable stared at him through blonde eyelashes, reddened lips falling shut where they brushed against his.

"Maybe I don't," he said, his voice falling to a hiss, "but you love me."

Xephos's chest ached and he set his gaze on the emptiest part of the ceiling. Maybe he loved Lalna. Maybe he loved Lalnable Hector. He didn't know well enough to judge.

"Maybe I do," he whispered in agreement.

"Even now," His grip made its way around Xephos's neck, squeezing gently but deliberately, running a thumb down his veins one by one.

Xephos exhaled, shuddering, and his eyes slid shut.

"My poor, sweet, _vicious_ Xephos."

* * *

"Hey, Xeph!"

He'd finally found him. He'd been looking around for hours, only to find the man standing silent and motionless before a glass-encased room.

"Blimey, who's that in there?" Xephos flinched as if he'd only just noticed the dwarf when he bumped himself into the tall, distant-eyed spaceman.

Xephos turned to him, eyes a little less bright than usual as he smiled, "Just a failed clone. Nothing to worry about, Honeydew."

He was blonde and fair skinned, with eyes a lovely blue-green. He stood staring back at them, but his eyes were glazed over. His arms and legs were held securely by metal braces and clamps. His head was covered in colour-coded tubes and wires that presumably went into his scalp. Honeydew shivered at the thought.

"Right."

He looked up after a faint shine caught his eye to see a full line of metal signs, bolted securely to the glass and displaying only one message:

_Don't tap on the glass Don't tap on the glass Don't tap on the glass Don't tap on the glass_ _Don't tap on the glass Don't tap on the glass Don't tap on the glass Don't tap on the glass_

"Well, we might as well get on with our work then!" The distant look vanished from the spaceman's eyes as he grinned down at the dwarf, "I've got a lot planned for today. You wouldn't believe the mess in the coffee machine!"

Unbeknownst to both of them as they walked away chattering, a failed clone's bloodied fingers twitched.


End file.
